Daisuke's Accidental Adventures (and the Talking Blue Chinese Bun)
by Kuri0808
Summary: [Daiken, some Taito] A Crack AU thingy. King Taichi and his consort Prince Yamato decide it's time for Daisuke to choose a partner.


All of this had started that fine Sunday evening, when King Yagami Taichi and his consort Prince Ishida Yamato suddenly decided that the time had come for Daisuke to take on a partner.

Lord Motomiya Daisuke, newly twenty years old, who for the first half of his life had been a mere, ordinary commoner before King Taichi had chosen him to be his heir, as Taichi and Yamato were both unquestionably male and hence were biologically incapable of producing their own blood offspring to inherit the throne. His coming of age ceremony had been just a month ago, a thoroughly serious and mindblowingly dull traditional ceremony at the royal temple.

"We'll hold a grand ball, invite all the Princesses from nearby kingdoms and noble ladies from our lands. There'll be songs and dancing and oh, we musn't forget the feast," Taichi said, giving Daisuke a huge, suggestive wink.

"Just give the word, Daisuke, and we'll tell Sora and Koushiro and Jyou to begin the preparations right away," Yamato said, the grin on his face as wide as Taichi's own. Daisuke tried to ignore how their twin grins were practically smirks of amusement. "Of course you'll get to have some say too, if you have any special requests?"

Daisuke looked at them, horrorstruck. This was definitely not what he had been expecting, when Iori showed up in his room earlier that day to announce that Taichi and Yamato were 'requesting his presence for dinner.'

"I'm only twenty!" Daisuke said indignantly. "I still have my entire life ahead of me, why do I have to choose a partner now?"

Taichi shook his head, attempting to look grim but failing spectacularly, highly probably because Taichi and Yamato found the entire affair highly entertaining. "Daisuke... You're of the Royal family now. It's tradition for a one of the Royal family to select a partner as soon as they are of age, and it's even more important in your case as my heir."

"Unless, of course," Yamato said, eyes suddenly narrowing, "Daisuke takes after us and would prefer having a male in his bed."

Daisuke went brilliantly red at that. "Of course not!" he protested. Suddenly an image of kind, gentle Lady Hikari's face flashed across his mind, and he had to mentally kick himself to focus on the conversation.

"How crude, Yamato," Taichi laughed.

"You're enjoying this way too much," Daisuke sulked, crossing his arms defensively.

"Of course we are," Yamato said, affectionately patting Daisuke on the head and mussing up his hair.

"And you've probably already told Koushiro and Sora to start planning for the ball," Daisuke guessed, still looking thoroughly put off.

"Smart boy," Taichi said approvingly. "I knew I made the right decision when I chose you to be my heir."

* * *

Koushiro strode up to Daisuke the very next day and shoved an extremely thick envelope into his hands.

"What's this?" Daisuke asked. The envelope was heavy in his hands, and the official seal of the House of Yagami stamped right in the middle of the envelope suddenly looked very ominous.

"The guest list." Koushiro let out a deep breath that sounded almost like a sigh of exasperation. "As per King Taichi's wishes, we will have thirty-five Princesses and ladies of noble birth from other lands in attendance, and we will be sending out out formal invitations to two hundred and eighty-nine noble ladies from our own lands."

"... I was right, you lot planned this ages ago before letting me in on it," Daisuke said, staring at Koushiro.

"Preparations started three months ago," Koushiro confirmed. "Taichi was very excited about it, I must say. Lord Motomiya, if you will please look over the guest list and see if you want any more names added to it."

"... Can you take out names from the list instead?" Daisuke asked, only slightly hopefully.

* * *

"First, for the hors d'oeuvre we shall have the freshest cold shrimp with lemon and smoked cheese, baked deviled eggs with caviar and black pepper and sun dried tomatoes, salmon cubes dipped in red wine, topped with delicate slices of cucumber, the finest selection of spiced cold cuts with-"

"... Mimi," Taichi said tiredly.

Mimi rounded on Taichi fiercely. "Don't you interrupt me," she said threateningly, waving a very, very long scroll at him.

"Sorry," Taichi said, looking suitably chastened. Yamato sighed and Sora hastily clapped a gloved hand over her mouth to muffle a giggle.

Mimi went on, excitedly describing her menu in extensive detail. Ten minutes into her enthusiastic speech, Daisuke, a little glazed-eyed (he hadn't even heard of half the kinds of foods she was talking about), raised his hand.

"Will there be pizza?"

Mimi frowned at him. "This will be a formal affair. Pizza will be entirely inappropriate-"

"Mimi," Sora cut in, giving Daisuke a look of half-pity, "This will be Daisuke's event, let him have his pizza."

Mimi looked extremely scandalised, but gave in on Sora's account. "Fine, we'll have pizza."

* * *

"No, Lord Daisuke, no!" Jyou was nearly hysterical when Daisuke made the same mistake of entering the ballroom through the wrong door four times in a row. "You have to enter through the main double doors on the second floor on the right, then pause at the top of the stairs before walking down slowly!"

"But I've _always_ walked in on the left," Daisuke called back, but he was already obediently retracing his footsteps to the appropriate doors.

"That's because you're usually attending events in honour of King Taichi, so he's the one entering through the main doors while you come in on the left, but this time the ball will be in your honour-"

Daisuke quite wisely kept his mouth shut.

* * *

"I hope you'll find someone nice," Hikari told Daisuke. She was sitting next to Takeru, her head on his shoulder. It looked very comfortable.

"Right," Daisuke said, trying not to sound too sulky.

"I'm sure he will," Iori said encouragingly, as Miyako nodded in agreement. "Miyako and I helped picked out some really nice girls to invite to the ball."

Daisuke stared at all of them in turn. "Traitors," he muttered darkly, and went back to his sulking.

* * *

One day before the grand event, Taichi and Yamato took Daisuke aside.

"I understand if you're nervous," Taichi began.

"But no matter who you choose," Yamato cotinued.

"We trust that you will make a good choice in selecting a consort worthy to stand by your side as you lead the kingdom together," Taichi finished.

"Thanks for the pressure," said Daisuke.

"There," Sora said fondly as she checked over the last details of Daisuke's outfit and hair, "you look perfectly handsome and ready to go."

Daisuke peeked at his reflection in the mirror. He did look rather impressive, he had to say, even if he knew King Taichi and Prince Yamato would probably look even grander. They would be there too, mostly watching over the ball or mingling with old friends in the crowd.

"Thanks, Sora," Daisuke said. He reached a hand up to tug a little at the tie around his neck - Sora had tied it on quite tightly - but she slapped his hand away.

Iori popped his head in. "It's time to go, Daisuke," he announced.

"Now go find yourself a nice girl," Sora told him severely, but her eyes were twinkling with amusement.

Daisuke had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. Why did everyone have to be so amused at his expense?

Daisuke's first thought when he entered the grand ballroom was that he had never in his life seen so many females gathered together in one room before. There had to be thousands of them, he thought, before belatedly remembering that the final guest list Koushiro and Jyou had drawn up only listed three hundred and sixty-one names.

There were a few men too; guards and escorts who had accompanied the visiting Princesses and noble Ladies to the ball. They were mostly huddled in one corner of the ballroom, keeping to themselves. Daisuke noticed that Takeru and Hikari and Iori were walking among them, chatting and laughing merrily with them, and he suddenly wished that he could join them too.

Music started up to signal the start of the ball, a gentle, delicate piece that Daisuke supposed was meant to be romantic. He could feel everyone's eyes on him as he descended the golden gilted stairs down into the main ballroom.

King Taichi and Prince Yamato and the rest of their usual party were seated at the High table on the upper floor. Daisuke stole a glance at them; Taichi and Yamato were hunched together bent over table over something Daisuke couldn't see. They looked like they were cheerfully bickering again (as they were quite wont to do), and Daisuke saw Yamato twitch in a way that suggested Taichi had very maturedly kicked him under the table.

The next hour was extremely uncomfortable, Daisuke forcing himself to walk among the guests and engaging in small talk with them. It wasn't that he was horrible at social situations (in fact, Daisuke considered himself extremely extroverted and found it very easy to make friends) but he found most of the girls either 1) boring, 2) shallow, 3) too overbearing, 4) weird, or 5) all of the above.

"Found anyone yet?" Miyako asked brightly, when Daisuke finally excused himself from the crowd and walked over to the food table.

"No," Daisuke said grumpily. "Where's the pizza?"

"It won't be served till the main feast," Miyako reminded him. "Why don't you go talk to more people?"

"But I'm hungry."

"_Daisuke_."

"Fine, fine," Daisuke scowled, and slunk back into the crowd.

By the time it was time for the feast, Daisuke was thoroughly exhausted and starting to think that the only females he ever wanted to see for maybe the whole of next week were Hikari and Miyako, and Sora and Mimi. Politely excusing himself (or as politely as he could manage, in his current state of mind) from a_ gaggle_ of young girls who were positively_ ooh_ing and _aah_ing at his every word, even at his story of how he once kicked a soccer ball through his bedroom window entirely by accident, Daisuke made his way up to the High table and unceremoniously flopped down in his seat on Taichi's left.

(Daisuke could actually_ feel_ Jyou's scandalised reaction to his wholly court-inappropriate behaviour, but Taichi had never been one to care much about etiquette anyway.)

Taichi laughed at him. "Nobody out there to your interest?" he asked genially.

"No," Daisuke said morosely, glaring at his empty silver plate.

"We'll still have a little over three hours before the ball concludes," Yamato said. "There's still plenty of time."

Daisuke groaned. A little white slip of paper peeking out from under Taichi's plate suddenly caught his eye; before Taichi could stop him he reached over and snatched it up.

_PLANS FOR DAISUKE'S ENGAGEMENT PARTY_, the bold words at the top of the paper proclaimed happily, in Taichi's untidy scrawl in his signature bright red ink. Following it was a very short list that had clearly ended with Taichi snatching Yamato's pen away from him.

"I haven't even _found_ anyone," Daisuke said incredulously, "and you're already planning the engagement party?"

"It could be worse," Taichi shrugged, "we could be planning your_ wedding_."

Something in Taichi's tone told Daisuke that the plans for his wedding for his yet-to-be-determined wife was already underway.

"But speaking of the wedding," Sora added in most unhelpfully, quite uncharacteristically joining in the teasing, "after the marriage, we've decided that your private chambers should be moved to the south wing of the castle, your current rooms would certainly be too small for two."

"King Taichi," Koushiro interrupted before Daisuke could respond to Sora, "it's time for you to address the ball."

"Right, Koushiro."

One particularly impressive thing about Taichi was how easily he could transform from his casual, playful persona to his more serious one when he had to handle official affairs. He did it now, gracefully standing up, a warm, courteous smile on his face. Daisuke and the rest of the party at the High table stood too, and Daisuke had to swallow hard at the sea of females below. Everyone had been seated by rank; the foreign Princesses occupying the highest tables, followed by the foreign nobles, then the noble ladies of their own lands according to their Houses and finally the servants and escorts who had come with the Princesses.

He was greeted with an enthusiastic chorus of cheering and clapping; King Taichi was well-loved by many.

Taichi's speech was short, welcoming their foreign visitors and wishing them well, thanking them for gracing the Yagami House with their presence, and hoping that they would find the rest of the night pleasurable. But Daisuke was only half-listening, because-

Takeru's subtle elbow to his ribs snapped him back to reality.

"... What?" Daisuke blinked.

"Lord Daisuke, do you wish to address the party?" Taichi was asking.

Daisuke blinked again. "Er... No, Your Majesty."

"Very well then," Taichi said, turning back to the hall, "now let us feast!"

"That always sounds so lame," Yamato snickered as they sat back down, "_'now let us feast_,' seriously now, Taichi?"

"It sounded good in my head," Taichi defended himself.

Daisuke waited until the serving girls had arrived with the food and everyone had started eating, before turning to Taichi and Yamato. "There's this girl," he whispered to them, "sitting at the second table next to the nobles from the Eastern lands. I think she's kinda cute, what do you think?"

Taichi's eyes widened expectantly. "Second table, with the Eastern nobles," he repeated, eyes gleaming. "Yamato, take a look for me will you? I can't stand up without everyone else thinking I'm going to address the party."

"Short-ish dark hair, tall, dressed in plain green," Daisuke added hopefully.

Yamato complied, half-standing up on the pretext of reaching over for the salt, surreptitiously peeking down at their guests. Yamato blinked, and then for the longest moment Daisuke thought that Yamato was going to silently cough up a lung.

"Daisuke," Yamato gasped, when he'd finally managed to stop laughing enough to speak, "that's Lord Ichijouji Ken of the Eastern lands. He's a _dude._"

"..." Daisuke blinked.


End file.
